I just don't get it

I was hoping someone could explain to me why the new site is so plagued with problems? I mean didn't they spend lots of times working the bugs out for months before they released it, just like when they reworked the store a year or so ago? So why is it that they can spend so much time making it work and them upon rollout be so riddled with problems as to seriously upset thier customers? Not only that but nearly a month later show so few signs of having gotten a handle on fixing those problems?

I can't think of specific sites to give as examples but I know I've seen large ecommerce sites rollout completely reworked sites seemingly overnight and the only problems would be people learning how to find the features they were used to in the new layout. Daz is the only site I can think of that seems to have so much trouble. As much outrage as the poorly concieved last rework of the site caused one would think Daz would have moved heaven and earth to avoid a repeat. Not only did they repeat the same failures as before but this time it seems even worse then the last time plus now it's not just confined to the store but also it is happening with the forums. I see a lot more anger from the customers being expressed and much more evidence of people taking their business elsewhere. Is Daz really so well off that they can afford to risk alienating so many customers? If they are then why not spend a bit more perhaps to insure a smoother transition?

Post edited by LordHardDriven on June 2012

Comments

Maybe I'm just talking out of my ass but I've said this in other threads... they really should have hired a professional that does nothing but set up the store and the forums. DAZ is so overwhelmed with keeping the business going, selling stuff, working on app updates and now this I just don't think they have the man power or the know how to really pull this off. I guess when the merchants get really pissed off and pull their business maybe then DAZ will get busy and do what they should have done in the first place.. HIRE A PRO to come in and put things right!

I was hoping someone could explain to me why the new site is so plagued with problems? ...

Well you are definitely not alone.

In my day job I'm a functional manager for several medium to large online platforms and consultant for upgrades like this (Acceptation testing and the actual deployment to production). From my professional point of view I'm also very interested how this upgrade was prepared and accepted ready to go live.But i do not think DAZ will share that with us.

I do hope that they will sort all off this out. When you are in a situation like this and no roll back is possible there are only two things you can do.

- Either pull the whole site down and take you're losses and the time to fix things and retest.

- Or keep it online and respond to issues which means you are always behind and if it takes to long you have the risk of serious reputation damage.

Which option is best,depends how you look at it. As a customer i'm not very happy at the moment.

No way. Stan Daz3D is well aware of all the problems that are affecting most users and is working to fix them. Problems which are isolated to one or a few users are much harder to pin down and may take longer to resolve.

You're not alone. I'm really confused by this. I've been shopping on the internet for more than ten years and I don't remember ever having so many problems after a website was "upgraded".

I'm a new customer, so I don't have all these years of experience others have with Daz making everything ok. After almost a month I'd expect the bugs to be mostly fixed but instead more bugs keep appearing. To my non-techy mind this means there are major problems with this site. The best thing Daz could do is take down the whole store and take the hit. Running a buggy store when you're in the IT business is surely not a way to inspire confidence in your product?

Okay well I guess I was looking for a definitive answer because the last site upgrade caused so much upset among customers I thought for sure Daz would never let that happen again. As far as experience with Daz well I've been here for about 10 years and while Daz does get things straightened out eventually, most of the time. It's always in the "Daz soon" time frame which could be weeks to months to even years in the case of Mac OSX Lion compatability.

Like I said though I've seen other sites say they were releasing a new site and then just one night the new site is up and everything works but people just have to relearn to navigate the site, which would be the only problem. The only site I can think of that many would recognize and is somewhat comparable in terms of numbers of products in the store is newegg.com which is a popular computer parts site. I would say that both are probably on the same level as far as size and money to work with so how is it one can have virtually no trouble but the other have nothing but trouble. I mean to be honest the way it feels is like all the time they said they were getting it ready was just talk or perhaps more correctly just loading up the products into an empty site but no actual bugs were worked on until they went live.

What really puzzles me is why the switch in the first place? The old site wasn't that old and the reason for that one was because the previous one was such a patched up version that it was becoming difficult to maintain. So the more recent old site, being only about a year or so old should have been relatively clean code. The old site also had lots of troubles when it went live but over the past year those problems seemed to have gotten worked out and it was finally getting to the point where it was running fairly smooth from a customer's perspective and then they went and upset the apple cart again by switching to this site.

Anyway thanks to everyone for trying to answer I guess the bottomline is only Daz can really answer these types of questions but it's probably not in their best interests to do so as it would likely raise more questions then it answered if they did try to explain it. I just hope they get it under control quick because overall I like Daz and want to see them stay around and do well but with the way things have been going the past couple of users I seriously wonder how long they can survive with the impact this all has on their customers.

What really scares me is how long this is taking. I can afford to be somewhat patient. I have needed a few things but was able to find items at other marketplaces. The scary thing is for Daz, because of the changes, many people are holding back and not buying things.

The other scary thing is how all this is affecting the PAs. How many of them use Daz as a primary source of sales? How many PAs depend on this as their SOLE income?

At this point Daz has messed about too long to go back to the last version (which is what I would have done after the first couple of days of the chaos). So, now they are painted into a corner.

About two weeks into this "event" made a comment somewhere that after all the trouble they had THIS time, maybe they should post a BIG reminder notice somewhere everyone at DAZ can see so they don't make the same mistakes again
At this point I'm thinking they should paint the front entrance to the building in BOLD NEON ORANGE WITH BLACK LETTERING with said reminder, so that that six months from now when they tune up the store again, that MAYBE there will not be a repeat of this whole... hum... I can't seem to come up with any words that don't require obscenity tags... um... lets say "event".

Incidentally... how long has it been since the switch? It seems ridiculously long already... 3 weeks? More... less?

What really puzzles me is why the switch in the first place? The old site wasn't that old and the reason for that one was because the previous one was such a patched up version that it was becoming difficult to maintain. So the more recent old site, being only about a year or so old should have been relatively clean code. The old site also had lots of troubles when it went live but over the past year those problems seemed to have gotten worked out and it was finally getting to the point where it was running fairly smooth from a customer's perspective and then they went and upset the apple cart again by switching to this site.

The new-old store software was a patched-up version of the old-old store software.

They kept it running for a year (and it took a year to fix. ;-) ). But it just wasn't sustainable.

They didn't get these bugs, during testing. I don't know if they could fix anything easier, if it was taken down for periods of time.
But it would have to be brought back up to track bugs down.

I don't know if taking the store down, takes the forums down... so far it has... and that's proven bad for customer relations, too.

I'd like to hear progress reports, but I think most Daz employees are afraid of us.
(We are not gentle, you could almost read tears in the eyes of this one guy).

And, I have a hunch they're worried that if they say any harmless detail, for instance, We found one of the configuration problems we've had in Varnish Cache Manager... they'd get angry emails from the business/organization who makes it - worried that it makes them look bad. (And it probably would lead to a bad-mouthing of that business/organization, far beyond these forums - that's the nature of the internet).

It's frustrating. I'd like to know, in great detail, who or what to allocate each of a large variety hateful thoughts at. :-SThat sentence has a lot of commas, but I don't think it's enough.

What we have to remember is this isn't an upgrade to the old software, this is a switch to completely new software. You can't just click some buttons and have everything transfer over and have everything work like it used to, especially since the old software was extremely customized by DAZ to get it to do things we are all used to and take for granted.

There is no eCommerce software out there that can do all the things the old software could do. Many of those things we took for granted in the old software need to be done in a completely different way, some of those things simply can't be done with Magento and DAZ will have to find some way to compensate for those features.

I'm as frustrated as a lot of you, but I'm sure DAZ will eventually get things straightened out.

It's frustrating. I'd like to know, in great detail, who or what to allocate each of a large variety hateful thoughts at. :-SThat sentence has a lot of commas, but I don't think it's enough.

If it makes you feel better, feel free to blame me :) While this isn't my fault, at some point I am sure I will do something that will be and then I can pay it forward and let someone else take the heat for that hehe (said in jest)

In seriousness, the side was tested for months and solid though putting it live in place does change certain variables and those variables can lead to unforeseen issues.

On my own site, I tend to work on it live and in it's final place for that reason, usually at a sub-domain or completely new domain to the rest of my site...or even a completely different server, hoping no one will find or happen upon it until I am done and can officially say here it is. The benefit to that, I know if it works it will continue to. The drawback, if I had the customer base DAZ does, there is a far far greater risk of people accidentally happening upon it (and sharing what they find then with others) not realizing it isn't the current store etc and that causing its fair share of major complications and issues.

In this case, while I am not certain, you have one cart system built off another cart system being utilized by yet another company. That is three passings of hands so to speak. On any one or all three levels there can be issues. Naming and shaming on any level though won't fix what is and isn't DAZ3D's way. Hard work, dedication to the store and it's customers, and chiseling away at the problems one after another is the only thing that will and while I realize faith in DAZ3D at the moment is at an all time low right now, those three things are all something DAZ3D has. They WILL get this working. I have absolute faith in that and since faith is at an all time low (which I understand) I will gladly have enough faith for everybody :)

"I don’t have all these years of experience others have with Daz making everything ok."

LOL. Too funny, been here years and that is not my experience. Doesn't matter if it is the site, an app, or content, this is basically the way DAZ does things. Not saying DAZ doesn't eventually get most things fixed. But some stuff has been broke for so long I never expect a fix. It's good things eventually get fixed, a lot of old hats here stick around because they know, eventually, it will get fixed. It's bad because new customers don't know this and leave before the fix.

Ok I will concede on the content, usually it works good. And if it doesn't it, gets fixed quick; if at all. Not counting bad downloads and PITA installers.

In my experience, some things never get fixed, and most don't get fixed in a timely manner; yes I understand somethings just can't get fixed in a timely matter, and some are just low priority. Some things I don't think DAZ can actually find a fix for. I can sympathies a bit, the passenger side rear-door on my jeep keeps locking it's self. I've been over it repeatedly, can't find what is causing it, so I can't fix it. ;)

So if things that are going on in this new forum are too much for you, well, just sayen ;)

Me, well, I love doing CG, I love to do staging, but with the introduction of genesis this all got to be more frustrating then fun.

What we have to remember is this isn't an upgrade to the old software, this is a switch to completely new software. You can't just click some buttons and have everything transfer over and have everything work like it used to, especially since the old software was extremely customized by DAZ to get it to do things we are all used to and take for granted.

Coldrake

To be honest it really should not matter how much customisation an old version of a site/online store is. What matters how you prepare a transition like this. You can never be sure that the new platform is tested for 100% but you can go far. But the thing is, this is with many company´s a money decision.

PLEASE NOTE: below are only examples what you can do. Every upgrade/change is unique. It is impossible to make any sort of statement on how DAZ prepared this (if you are not directly involved).

Server environment:
-Dedicated development environment (if you are going to make code changes).
-Dedicated test environment.
-Acceptation environment (100% the same as production, hardware, settings, amount of data (test data or anonymized production data).
-Production environment.

Testing:
-Testmasterplan based on the riskanalys.
-Code and requirements testing/code review if you made changes.
-Acceptation testing (making sure all critical functions are working correct)
-Security testing
-Performance/stability testing on acceptation.

Production deployment:
-Deployment manual (go/no-go points)/ testing the deployment procedures on acceptation.
-Fall back scenarios (if a version roll back is not possible after a go). For example deploying the new version on separate servers/keeping the old servers as back up)

After deployment:
-Additional monitoring after the site is live.
-Internal communication and escalation manuals (fall back scenarios etc, who makes the decisions when something goes wrong etc)
-External communication manuals (how are you going to inform customers when issues arise and who is responsible for communication)

Great points Jerham. I would add the earlier stage of package evaluation needs to be where you really measure the package against your store's requirements... if there is missing functionality in the package negotiate with the vendor... it could be something they would want to add to the package itself...ie. fastgrabs, single list for purchased items, links for vendor's products, etc. Let them add it so you aren't forever customizing the package... not only now with this big install... but also whenever the package itself is updated you either have another customization effort or have to stay on older less supported versions fo the package.

...the other day while doing some unrelated research, I was on the Capital Metro (Austin's transit system) site. They are planning to migrate to new software. What they are doing is keeping the current site live alongside the new site (still in Beta status) which is accessible by a link from the home page.

I've seen other sites/businesses do this as well. It allows customers to, in the words of Capital Metro, "test drive" the new site before it goes live and offer comments/suggestions.

This is something Daz should have done, at least with the Store and associated account pages portion of their site. I agree with others and have mentioned elsewhere myself that this most likely is having a serious impact on Daz's bottom line. I too like have put off making any new purchases and even deleted my CC profile (even though I am told that information is safe) until there is some stability here. In my book no site is completely "hack proof", especially one that is apparently in utter chaos.

...the other day while doing some unrelated research, I was on the Capital Metro (Austin's transit system) site. They are planning to migrate to new software. What they are doing is keeping the current site live alongside the new site (still in Beta status) which is accessible by a link from the home page.

I've seen other sites/businesses do this as well. It allows customers to, in the words of Capital Metro, "test drive" the new site before it goes live and offer comments/suggestions.

This is something Daz should have done, at least with the Store and associated account pages portion of their site. I agree with others and have mentioned elsewhere myself that this most likely is having a serious impact on Daz's bottom line. I too like have put off making any new purchases and even deleted my CC profile (even though I am told that information is safe) until there is some stability here. In my book no site is completely "hack proof", especially one that is apparently in utter chaos.

Well this is exactly what Daz did with the last "new site" in fact as I recall they had it accessible as a beta for close to a year, yet upon rollout it was loaded with problems and many of the people who signed up as beta testers reported that their suggestions seemed to be ignored or at best not explained why it wasn't going to be something that would be implemented.

What really puzzles me is why the switch in the first place? The old site wasn't that old and the reason for that one was because the previous one was such a patched up version that it was becoming difficult to maintain. So the more recent old site, being only about a year or so old should have been relatively clean code. The old site also had lots of troubles when it went live but over the past year those problems seemed to have gotten worked out and it was finally getting to the point where it was running fairly smooth from a customer's perspective and then they went and upset the apple cart again by switching to this site.

The new-old store software was a patched-up version of the old-old store software.

They kept it running for a year (and it took a year to fix. ;-) ). But it just wasn't sustainable.

Well the only problem I have with that explaination is it was pretty much that explaination that was given as to why they switched from the old old site to the last old site. So if the last old site was really just a patched up version of the old old site then it was a short sighted solution to more or less replaced a patched up version with a reworked patched up version.

I guess in the end it only really matters to me from the perspective of will Daz be able to survive what all these problems are doing to it's customer base? I say that because currently and for the foreseeable near future I can't afford anything here, hell I'm struggling just to be able to afford food and keep from having to file bankruptcy and as such it's no problem for me to wait for a fix to eventually come down the road. If everything is working fine and Daz is still here when/if my situation improves then for me it'll really just be a no harm no foul kind of thing.

What my intent with this thread is, is to try to understand better why it needs to be this way and perhaps through starting that discussion help others to understand the why's better. It's a valid point that not all ecommerce sites are the same and therefore one site might be able to implement a new site without problems while another is plagued with problems. I just don't see what's so different here to make it so hard for Daz to roll out a new site smoothly.

...the other day while doing some unrelated research, I was on the Capital Metro (Austin's transit system) site. They are planning to migrate to new software. What they are doing is keeping the current site live alongside the new site (still in Beta status) which is accessible by a link from the home page.

I've seen other sites/businesses do this as well. It allows customers to, in the words of Capital Metro, "test drive" the new site before it goes live and offer comments/suggestions.

This is something Daz should have done, at least with the Store and associated account pages portion of their site.

DAZ stated in the first post of the announcement thread on May 10th,"Due to the nature of the changes we're making, we will not be able to have both sites up simultaneously. As a result, once we turn on the new store, access to the old (current) store/site will NOT be available."

Well the only problem I have with that explaination is it was pretty much that explaination that was given as to why they switched from the old old site to the last old site. So if the last old site was really just a patched up version of the old old site then it was a short sighted solution to more or less replaced a patched up version with a reworked patched up version.

Rather then repeating myself maybe I should say it differently, no? The site Daz ran from around 2003 to 2010 was what we are refering to here as the old, old site. When the new old site was rolled out (the version before the current site) it was loaded with as many problems as this new site is but as an explaination as to why was it necessary it was said the old, old site was so patched up that it was becoming unstable and problematic to keep using. Now the post I was replying to made the case that the new old site was really just a patched up version of the old, old site. I'm finding that hard to believe though because Daz's reason alledgedly from moving from the old, old site was because it was so patched up and becoming unstable. So if the assertion is true that the new old site was really the old, old site patched up, then I'm saying it was pretty short sighted to try and fix a problem by doing essentially the same thing that created the problem. It would have been smarter to move to a new platform then and deal with one round of pissing off customers rather then pissing everyone of with a patch worked solution and then pissing them off again a year later with a whole new platform.

...the other day while doing some unrelated research, I was on the Capital Metro (Austin's transit system) site. They are planning to migrate to new software. What they are doing is keeping the current site live alongside the new site (still in Beta status) which is accessible by a link from the home page.

I've seen other sites/businesses do this as well. It allows customers to, in the words of Capital Metro, "test drive" the new site before it goes live and offer comments/suggestions.

This is something Daz should have done, at least with the Store and associated account pages portion of their site. I agree with others and have mentioned elsewhere myself that this most likely is having a serious impact on Daz's bottom line. I too like have put off making any new purchases and even deleted my CC profile (even though I am told that information is safe) until there is some stability here. In my book no site is completely "hack proof", especially one that is apparently in utter chaos.

Well this is exactly what Daz did with the last "new site" in fact as I recall they had it accessible as a beta for close to a year, yet upon rollout it was loaded with problems and many of the people who signed up as beta testers reported that their suggestions seemed to be ignored or at best not explained why it wasn't going to be something that would be implemented.
...however, that was with PHPBB which is open source and requires that the user's (in this case Daz's) IT department to handle all the development work. With Magenta Enterprise, that should not have been the issue as they mention they have a fairly "well manned" support team.

Granted, many of the issues appear to stem for Daz trying to migrate a very customized database to the new software. Now one would think that if everything worked fine in testing at worst there should be maybe only a few minor issues when it goes live. That is not the case in this instance and what we are experiencing makes the last update's issues pale in comparison. The bottom line is that I feel Daz made the wrong choice given the fact they hoped to migrate the old database and it's features into what is apparently incompatible software for the task.

I still believe that a parallel setup would have been the best way to go as they would still have a fallback with the PHPBB.based site. This whole situation has basically been a torpedo to the midship and Daz is beginning to flounder with the bridge crew still thinking they can patch things up while continueimng at full speed ahead.

... This whole situation has basically been a torpedo to the midship and Daz is beginning to flounder with the bridge crew still thinking they can patch things up while continueimng at full speed ahead.

And since the ship has been chuming the waters for years, the sharks are circling the scene waiting for the crew to toss the rest of the cargo overboard. :ohh:

The last update was using the same core, with patches and fixes. That's why it was possible to run it in parallel. It was hoped that those would resolve the problems with the original store code, but they didn't. Therefore DAZ has had to move to a new system, which isn't a proprietary home-brew but which also has a different structure and way of handling some things (such as coupons) and so couldn't be run in parallel with the old store. or at least, that's my understanding of the situation.

I've been tempted to say something to DAZ like "this is the worst software bungle I've ever seen". However, for the last several days I've been trying to get a brand new spiffy Western Digital 3-terabyte "MyBook Live" network external hard drive to work properly and reliably. The drive is nice. It works as advertised if you use Windows7-Pro's "Backup&Restore;"; native software to backup your data and system to the WD network drive. However for Windows7-HomePremium or Vista-Basic or any XP machine you discover that the backup to a network drive feature isn't in those Microsoft OS's so you are tempted to use WD's free "SmartWare" backup software that came with the drive. I'd heard bad things about it but figured it was just pilot error and any competent computer guru could make it straighten up and fly right. Wrong!!! >:(

Needless to say, I have been less than successful. So I go to the web and Google for problems with the WD "SmartWare" backup software and what do I see?? Oodles and oodles of poor saps just like me who say things like "What is this crap?" and "So you want to get rid of SmartWare?". :ohh:

My experience with "SmartWare" is that it is less than smart. In fact it has now received my pronouncement that Western Digital's "SmartWare" is the worst software bungle I have ever seen. So DAZ, you're safe from that title for a while at least. ;-P

Well I guess things are finally starting to improve, I no longer see someone else's name when I'm logged in and when I click new releases I see all of the new releases. Now if we can just get back the ability to click a vendors name and see thier store and they can find a way to put back alot of the information about products the old site had (number of files, file sizes, accessories for a given file) I'll be a happy camper again.

I guess what's most frustrating to me is that for most of us users we really didn't know what exactly Daz was trying to do. Like with the missing information on the product pages how are we supposed to know if that's a problem with the site software or if it's something Daz did intentionally?